CICED2008 Technical Session 2 Power Quality and PowerConservation
82-12 CP1512
Operation Test and Industrial Application of SVC for Mitigation
Flicker from Electric arc Furnaces
zhong-yuan zhao, chi-han chen, xiao-hong wang, shun-xian bao
NARI-RELAYS Electric Company Limited, Power Electronics Center,
Jiangsu 211102, China
Abstract: The situation at electric arc furnace factory is
always severe containing voltage fluctuation and flicker,
three-phase imbalance and low power factor. The dynamic var
compensator is a good solution to this condition. The static
var compensator (SVC), with its continuously variable
compensation, also safeguards the plant against
overcompensation during furnace outages. The SVC
equipment, offered by NARI-RELAYS, presents a phase-wise
open-loop reactive power controller and a three-phase
closed-loop power factor control, which are based on
high-speed space vector control. The factory system test on
physical simulator is implemented, and its open-loop response
time is less than 7 milliseconds with closed-loop one less than
25 milliseconds. One electric arc furnace plant's engineering
is illustrated as an example to show the effects with/without
SVC function.
Keywords: SVC, voltage fluctuation and flicker, harmonic
mitigation, electric arc furnace
1 INTRODUCTION
The use of static var compensator (SVC) can solve
effectively many electric power quality problems such as low
power factor, voltage fluctuation and flicker, three-phase
imbalance and the dynamic and static instability of power
system. In fact, as power quality issues are getting more and
more into focus in many parts of the world, requirements on
the mitigation of flicker and other kinds of current and
voltage distortion are being imposed by regulatory bodies at
an increasing scale. To meet this, grid owners and operators
of process industry are meeting each other in order to work
out solutions to common problems which will satisfy the
needs and interests of all concerned.
A SVC rated 0-15Mvar, supplied by NARI-RELAYS,
has been in operation at Yishengte's steel making plant(YST)
in Zhejiang province.
With the SVC in operation, the compensated power
factor at the point of common coupling is better than 0.99.
The SVC also achieves filtering of harmonics caused by the
operating of the furnaces in the steel plant as well as acts as a
balancer of the highly unsymmetrical load on the AC supply
grid represented by the electric arc furnace.
2 SVC INTEGRATED PRINCIPLE
In the deduction process of SVC compensation
susceptances, there are two prerequisites. One condition is that
the three-phase system is balanced after compensation, that is to
say, negative sequence component of system line currents must
equal zero.Accordingly, the equation is as follows:
12+12,=0 (I)
where 12 is the negative sequence component of
system line currents I a, I b and Ie' 12 , is the negative
sequence component of SVC compensation currents.
The other condition is that power factor equal one after
compensation, that is to say, the imaginary part of the positive
sequence component of system line currents equals zero, and
the corresponding equation is as follows:
1m[II + II,] = 0 (2)
where II is the positive sequence component of system
line currents Ia , I, and Ie' II, is the positive sequence
component of SVC compensation currents.
Based on (I) and (2) above, the SVC three-phase
compensation susceptance B;b, B;e .B" can be deduced,
which are shown as follow:
1
B;b = --(Im[Ia]+ Im[aIb]+ Im[a 2 Ie]
3U
B;e =__1_(_ Im[Ia] + Im[aIb]+ Im[a 2 Ie]
3U
B;a = -_I_(Im[Ia] - Im[aIb]+ Im [a 2 Ie]
3U
 CICED2008 Technical Session 2 Power Quality and PowerConservation

where U represents the virtual value of three-phase

balanced voltages, a =ej 2n 13 •
2.1 Main circuit connection
The SVC at YST is operated directly on the 35kV arc
furnace bus. It comprises a Thyristor-Controlled Reactor
(TCR) rated 15Mvar and four parallel Harmonic Filters, also
with an overall rating 15Mvar. I n..--_...11...._ ...

11• ..-....1_
,~

.1001 . . . .. . 011

This control system adopted the phase-wise reactive _ ... -.1 ....

power control by means of fast-acting open-loop controller.

Plus three-phase closed-loop power factor control. The 2nd Figure2. SVC layout
harmonic filter, 3rd harmonic filter,4th harmonic filter and 5th
harmonic filter are installed at AC load side. And all the
protection devices for filters are also supplied by
NARI-RELAYS.
The factory system test is implemented on physical
simulator to meet the requirements from IEC 61000. The
open-loop response time for the controller is less than 7
millisecond. Its closed-loop response time is less than 25
millisecond. Meanwhile, the three-phase imbalanced case is
also done on this SVC.
The whole single-line diagram is offered in Figure\.

Figure3. SVC control & protection cubiclephoto

Figure 1. Single-line diagram

2.2 Main equipment layout

The thyristor-valve is a three-phase, water-cooled valve
with indirect light firing.
On-site layout is shown in Figure 2. The thyristor-valves
and control & protection cubicles in Figure 3 are installed at
the first floor indoor. The water-cooler system uses the pure
water as cooling material. The reactors and capacitors for
filters are set down on the second floor, illustrated in Figure 4.
Figure4. Reactorand capacitorphoto
3 OPERATION EFFECTS
The operation waves on site are shown in Figure 5.
Power quality has been improved sharply, and voltage
fluctuation also has been mitigated with var absorbed from
power grid system side being nearly zero, since the SVC was
installed.
The overall power factor of 0.99 is achieved steadily.
The voltage flicker and other harmonic values are better than

2
 CICED2008 Technical Session 2
ones regulated by IEC standard.
Figure5. Operation recordwave
4 CONCLUSIONS
The functions ofSVC can be obtained as follows.
• The overall power factor can be kept on 0.99. the
over-compensation and sub-compensation do not occur.
• Rapid response to voltage fluctuation can be
achieved to mitigate the voltage flicker, and is able to
stabilize the power supply, as well as to increase the
production quality.
• Reducing the harmonic currents generated by arc
furnace.
• The situation of three-phase imbalance can
be effectively improved.
REFERENCES
[1] Li Xing-guang, and Lai Sheng-Ii, "An Approach of
Integrated Compensation for Reactive Power and Three
Phase Unbalance", Power System technology, vol.25,
Power Quality and PowerConservation
pp.288-291,Oct.2001.
[2] Ding Ren-jie , Liu Jian , Zhang Juan, and Zhao Yu-wei.
"New Control Method of SVC Based on Instantaneous
Reactive Power Theory", Transactions of China
Electrotechnical Society, vol.21, pp.48-51, May.2006.
[3] Wilsun Xu, Yi Zhang, Luiz C. P. da Silva, et al.
"Valuation of Dynamic Reactive Power Support
Services for Transmission Access", IEEE Transaction
on Power Systems, 16(4), pp. 719-728, 2001.
[4] Wang Mu-hai, and Sun Yuan-zhang, "Application of
Universal Instantaneous Power Theory to Unbalanced
Load Compensation," Proceedings of the Chinese
Society for Electrical Engineering, vol.23, pp.56-59,
2003.
[5] Ji Fei-feng, Zhou Li-dan, and Yao Gang, "Static var
compensator based on the method of synchronous
symmetrical component ," Proceedings of the Chinese
Society for Electrical Engineering, vol.25, pp.27-32,
2005.
[6] Sun Chi, Wei Guang-hui , and Bi Zeng-jun., "Detection
for reactive and harmonic currents of unbalanced
three-phase systems based on synchronous coordinate
conversion ," Proceedings of the Chinese Society for
Electrical Engineering, vol.23, pp.43-48, 2003.